Saba People Cloud Delivers Next-Generation People Development
Key People Processes Leverage Advanced Social, Mobile and Collaboration Capabilities
Bracknell, UK – March 5, 2013 – At People 2013: Saba Global Summit today, Saba (NASDAQ: SABA) announced the latest update of Saba People Cloud, an innovative, cloud-based service featuring fully integrated and robust enterprise learning and talent processes with social, mobile and collaboration capabilities, all in a single environment. Building on more than 15 years of leadership in the learning and talent management sector, Saba is transforming traditional processes and how work gets done at organizations around the world. Saba People Cloud was architected for the cloud; with an enterprise social collaboration core, mobile delivery and Saba’s enterprise-class learning and talent management capabilities. With today’s announcement, Saba has delivered a next-generation cloud service that can help professionally and personally inspire, engage and develop an organization’s entire people network – its employees, partners, customers and vendors,
Today’s rapidly changing global economy and increasingly multigenerational workforce are imposing a change in how organizations compete not only in the marketplace, but also for the talent needed to succeed. Technology – from the cloud to the influx of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets –has given organizations of any size the opportunity to compete on a global scale. Employees no longer need to operate in the confines of their cubicle at their headquarters during the typical nine-to-five workday. Instead, companies can function competitively around the clock, from anywhere and on any device. Saba’s solution helps organizations adapt to – and succeed in – the new world of work by transforming how business is conducted.
“As architects and designers, step one in the Saba People Cloud is idea generation. Allowing the good stuff to float to the top, our plan is to harvest the energy and commitments of our people into specific topics of research to invest in, to take our own research to market and open up new streams of better business,” said Rodney Paesler, managing director at Scott Carver, an Australia-based design firm. “Our industry is rich with issues and problems to solve, and it keeps changing in complexity. Discourse is the only way to stay engaged, to stay in front. Crowd sourcing from a focused community is like crop farming. And we are only at the hunter and gatherer stage.”
“Saba has a long tradition of bringing to market innovative solutions that have changed how companies attract, train, manage and inspire their employees,” said Amar Dhaliwal, senior vice president, product strategy at Saba. “Unique in the marketplace, Saba People Cloud delivers a new people development solution with social, mobile and collaboration capabilities that will enable organizations to develop their people and ensure their competitiveness in the new world of work.”
Key People Processes in the Saba People Cloud include:
- Learning@Work– Learning is the key foundation of any talent management process. From learning driven by performance reviews to building leadership pipeline from succession planning processes, Saba enables employers to assign learning and close skill gaps from any talent process. Saba’s flexible learning solution (with eCommerce), sophisticated workflow engine, and highly configurable applications, supports any learning strategy. Saba also is introducing advanced testing, assessment and people visualization capabilities that are fully unified with Saba’s core learning processes. Learning@Work also provides highly relevant and personalized learning experiences to different groups, at any location, from a single unified solution.
- Performance@Work– Ongoing evaluations of employee performance are vital to organizations’ success. Saba combines the best of formal and social performance management processes in one people-centric solution that focuses on workers, not data or processes. Leveraging Saba, managers easily can oversee their teams from a single page and understand their approval ratings through the exclusive Saba Pulse feature. It’s imperative that organizations have insight into how their employees are performing, what goals, as well as training or activities team members have on the horizon. With Performance@Work, employers can assign goals, recommend learning, complete reviews, and find mentors and experts for their teams. Managers also can use Saba’s real-time Web conferencing tool to schedule regular staff meetings and reach out to individual team members anytime through private messages, instant messaging and also instant virtual meetings.
- Planning@Work– Too often, organizations are forced to delay or cancel strategic initiatives due to talent constraints. Saba gives employers the ability to aggregate and view critical talent information in one place, managing every aspect of workforce, organizational and succession planning. Planning@Work also allows employers to understand how work gets done through Saba’s one-of-a-kind Dynamic Network Analysis (DNA) social graphing tools, and helps them to build talent pools and strong leadership pipelines with Saba’s succession planning capabilities tied to development processes.
- Collaboration@Work– Saba’s social, mobile and real-time collaboration technologies transform how companies inspire, engage and develop their employees, partners and customers. Saba helps build communities to connect and collaborate with coworkers, partners and customers. Through a single social profile, employees around the world can share documents and plans, discuss and cultivate ideas, and find experts across the extended network. Collaboration@Work also enables workplaces to leverage today’s most popular social media sites, such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or Pinterest to deliver results more efficiently. By giving workers access to connected communities like these, employers will experience an increase in workforce engagement and customer satisfaction.
Through the unification of learning, performance, workforce planning and collaboration into a single solution, Saba has addressed the changing business landscape, enabling organizations of all sizes – from small-to-midsized businesses (SMBs) to global corporate enterprises – to evolve at their own pace, providing a configurable people-centric solution that supports the agile, continuous learning environment required for organizations to successfully compete in today’s economy. Saba People Cloud is designed to optimize not only the 20 percent of formal learning process that occurs daily, but also capture the 80 percent of informal learning processes that happen throughout the workday.
NextLab is an innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem where faculty, students, experts, and company employees, distributed globally, contribute to the success of technology startups in diverse geographic locations. First conceived as a research program at MIT, it now has launched as an independent, commercial enterprise. “When we took our project to the next level, we needed a next-generation cloud service to host our unique collaborative environment,” said Jhonatan Rotberg, NextLab’s founder and director. “Saba’s cloud-based solution offers the traditional talent and learning management solutions we need, coupled with the social and collaborative capabilities that connect all members of our ecosystem across diverse geographical locations. Leveraging Saba’s solution, we find that regardless of where in the world the work is getting done, it is happening in real time, and to the high standard that our organization requires.”
Saba People Cloud is built on a new advanced technology platform that provides powerful analytics capabilities, uses open social and content standards, exposes a new set of REST Web Services APIs through the Saba Integration Studio, and provides enhancements to Saba’s global platform configurability as well as a strong foundation for mobile application development.
Saba will continue to develop and support its current enterprise solution. Clients will have the opportunity to leverage the many new enhancements just announced, with the option to move to Saba People Cloud if and when they decide it is best for their business. Upgrading to the new version of their current product has the added benefit of making it even easier to take advantage of Saba People Cloud.
Also at Summit, Saba is unveiling a new portfolio of services capabilities optimized for its cloud solutions. These services are designed to help Saba People Cloud users plan, realize and optimize the fastest time to value, driving increased user adoption and higher levels of client satisfaction. New services in the portfolio include SabaMAP, Consulting On Demand and Saba Leap.
For more information on the Saba People Cloud, and its full list of features, please click here.
Supporting Resources
- Visit Saba: uk.saba.com
- See additional updates from People 2013: https://www.sabasummit.com/home.aspx
- Follow the Saba blog: /blogs/
- Follow Saba on Twitter: @Saba Software